


A Bad Dream

by Navigatrix



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28151436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Navigatrix/pseuds/Navigatrix
Summary: Set before Part 5 of @ifinkufreaky’s “The Heart of Admiration” series
Relationships: Charles Vane/Original Character(s), Charles Vane/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	A Bad Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Heart of Admiration](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24341695) by [ifinkufreaky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifinkufreaky/pseuds/ifinkufreaky). 



> Set before Part 5 of @ifinkufreaky’s “The Heart of Admiration” series

Vane is sitting on the beach, sleepless yet again, when he hears Hope cry out. It’s a raw sound, frightened and angry, and it makes the pit of his stomach clench with dread. He races to her tent, heart pounding, cutlass in hand, where he finds her fast asleep, fists clenched, fighting something only she can see. He shakes her by the shoulders but she can’t wake. Deep in her nightmare, she head-butts him in the mouth and he tastes blood. Oh, so it's like that, is it.

He grabs Hope around the body, pinning her arms to her sides, and murmurs in her ear “Hope, sweetheart, wake up. Wake up, love. Wake up so you can sleep again.”

Vane’s rasping voice filters through the horrors in her head and Hope jolts awake, wild-eyed and disoriented. Her eyes slowly focus on his bleeding lip. “Did I do that?”

“You were having a bad dream.” 

She looks down. “I'm sorry. It doesn’t happen often, and never at sea.” She starts to turn away, but he's still holding her. He’s loosened his grip enough that she could easily break away, but he’s here. He’s here with her. She’s not sure why he’s here with her.

“Hope.” She continues to avoid his face, mortified that he had seen her vulnerable, horrified that she had hurt him by accident. With a gentleness she once would have thought impossible from a man as dangerous as Charles Vane, he curls the fingertips of one hand beneath her jaw and tilts her head up so she’s staring directly into his eyes. She’s relieved to see not even a trace of pity or derision in those blue depths. Instead, she sees concern, and a surprising empathy. “Never apologize for surviving. Not to me, not to anyone.” 

“I’m apologizing for bloodying your lip.”

Vane never speaks to anyone of what happened to him as a child, when he was the youngest and smallest of the slaves and thus bore the brunt of their rage and the taskmaster’s aggression alike. But he needs Hope to know that he understands the way the past sometimes invades the present. Understands far too well. His voice growls urgently into her ear. "What they did to us wasn't our fault. We lived through it. We're our own. We're pirates, and we're free."

Hope takes a deep breath, and then another. "Thank you for waking me," she finally says. "It was a foul dream." 

Vane is still gazing at her with that unusual tenderness, hand still on her shoulder. "I'm no stranger to those," he says, his voice barely louder than a whisper, a confession that will never go beyond the thin cloth walls of this tiny tent, that he would never make by light of day. Nor, Hope realizes, will he ever mention what just transpired unless she brings it up first. "Do you think you can get back to sleep?"

"I think I’m awake for the remainder." Why is she reluctant for him to leave? He’s still close enough that she can breathe him in, tobacco and gun smoke and sea water and something heady that is unique to him. Though it vexes her to admit it, even to herself, she finds the man’s presence oddly comforting. 

He must have sensed her reluctance. “Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I walk east to that inlet where the fishing boats come in. Watch the sun rise. Have you been over there?”

Hope shakes her head, not trusting her voice. The little terms of endearment Vane used when waking her echo in her head. She tells herself they were meaningless, probably merely said to soothe her. There’s no logical reason why they should resonate like this. _Sweetheart. Love_.

He gets to his feet. “When they come in with their catch, there are stands that will fry it up for you right there on the spot. I’ll show you.”

She opens her mouth to tell him that he should get some sleep, that she’s put him through enough trouble tonight, but the words come out as “I’d like that.”

He waits outside her tent while she pulls on her boots and coat, equips herself with her various knives and pistols, and runs a comb through her hair. She exits to find Vane has slung his battered leather coat over one shoulder, but hasn’t bothered to put on a shirt. She’s asked Jack if Vane had some kind of moral enmity toward shirts, and Jack, damn him, had simply arched a brow and replied “I shouldn’t think that moral is the right word.”

She falls in step beside Vane; as ever, he is not inclined to talk much, but here and there along the route he shows her points of interest. By the time they arrive, the sky is lightening in the east, and so is her mood.


End file.
